Let me take you down, cause I’m going to. . . GT-R Fields. Almost nothing is real, whether you’re talking about the ridiculous Nurburgring-centric engi-marketing, the programmed-to-self-destruct transmissions, or the amazing shrinking customer warranties. Still, there’s nothing to get hung about (so to speak). The entire concept behind the GT-R—building a car that more or less steers itself to people who can’t drive for shit, live in downtown Tokyo, or both– is stranger than any LSD trip John Lennon could have possibly imagined.

Many years ago, it became quite fashionable to refer to The Clash as “the only band that ever really mattered.” Chevrolet borrowed this evocative line for the introduction of the soft-top C5 Corvette, calling it “the only convertible that ever really mattered” in a two-page color-rag spread. Truth be told, though, those are both pretty tough cases to make. And you don’t have to be a Beatles-obsessed Boxster owner (as I am) to argue the contrary. It’s far easier to apply the phrase to the Mustang: the only ponycar that ever mattered. Consider the competition. Camaro, Challenger, Javelin… hell, Celica and 200SX. Some shone, some sucked, none have gone the forty-five-year distance. The Mustang was the first ponycar on the scene, the best ponycar available for much of its history, and the only one to not disappoint its fans with periodic disappearances. And now we have a new “new Mustang,” arriving just in time to spoil the Camaro’s tardy coming-out party.

More than three hours and two hundred miles after leaving home, a call came through on our Fusion’s SYNC system: the testing session we’d scheduled at Virginia International Raceway was canceled due to several inches of unexpected snowfall. With ambient temperatures hovering in the fifteen-degree range, and without any available track time to put Ford’s facelifted mid-sizer through its paces, how could we determine if the Fusion “Sport” lived up to the promise of it’s fashionable chrome badging?

Less than sixty days ago, I wrote about my brother’s seemingly quixotic quest to purchase a year-old Pontiac G8 at something less than sticker price. Time after time, he’d been placed on endless hold, denied test drives, and generally treated with the type of courtesy normally reserved for guest stars of “To Catch a Predator.” After more than ninety days of intermittent searching, the best price we’d been able to find was a sorta-invoice deal from a dealer in Texas, more than a thousand miles away. Did I mention his trade-in? It was a 63k-mile Mazda RX-8 which was on its second rotary engine thanks to an autocross motor implosion and which also featured a fascinating array of scratches, rocker-panel dents, and impact-wrench-installed suspension upgrades.

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My experience running the 2005 One Lap of America in a Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16/ had left me more than a little cynical about the event. The fantasy of running the “modern-day Cannonball” had been eclipsed by frustration with the quasi-time-trial, horsepower-obsessed reality that is OLOA in the modern era. Still, the competitive disease from which both I and my co-driver Brian suffered meant that we wanted to “win” the thing before we left Brock’s Big Parade for the greener pastures of real wheel-to-wheel racing. Enter former radiologist and current Mercedes-Benz tuner Satish Tummala, owner of Motorwerks in Detroit.

George Carlin famously opined, “Everyone who drives slower than you do is an idiot; everyone who drives faster than you do is a maniac.” I took a fair amount of stick from the B&B the other day for admitting I’ve exceeded the speed limit in the past. The squeaky wheels here at TTAC seem to consider 123 mph not acceptable; which makes me wonder what some of those people would have said if they’d ridden up I-75 with me a few years ago when I decided to “max out” my 911.

Some of you feel that any speeding is unacceptable, but I’d suspect you are in the minority, even at TTAC. The average driver does speed. [ED: gasp!] So, B&B, the question becomes: where do you draw the line? At ten over? Fifteen? Double the limit? 300 kph? Sure, conditions vary, so let’s stipulate a set of familiar conditions: a Florida freeway, five lanes, wide, good weather, visibility to the horizon, clumps of traffic with long gaps between. What’s safe? What’s acceptable for the “average driver”? What are you willing to do in that situation?

I’ll open with my personal opinion: in a car I own, by myself or with consenting passengers, with the V1, Lidatek and various other devices in play, I’m willing to floor it until we reach the limit stamped on the sidewalls. You?

For most American enthusiasts, the Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16 will always live in the shadow of the mighty E30 M3. Although Mercedes was first to the sixteen-valve party, the US variant of the “Cosworth Benz” was slower, more expensive and infinitely more staid-looking than the iconic four-cylinder Bimmer. History’s verdict regarding the two cars is written on the Internet—the E30 has high residuals, fanatical owners and its own Special Interest Group of the BMWCCA. The 2.3-16 languishes in Craiglist ads, covered in rust, fraught with deferred maintenance. Shame.

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It’s a bright Thursday morning on Interstate 95. I’m hammering my black Phaeton down the left lane at an indicated one hundred and twenty-three miles per hour. In the back seat, my brother and sister-in-law are sound asleep. Next to me, my wife idly flips through the pages of a month-old magazine. “I think the Wilderness Lodge is the worst hotel at Disney… of the acceptable ones, you know,” she says. Before I can respond I notice that we’re closing in on what looks like a high-speed multiple-car freeway accident. In progress.

“Consultant” is the new way to say “unemployed.” But, from time to time, it can be quite lucrative to consult on various vague enterprises. Such was the case a few years ago when I found myself with the urge and the ability (temporary, alas) to add something truly outrageous to my personal Island of Misfit Cars. A racing buddy of mine mentioned to me that Spyker was bringing their “demo car” through Detroit. There might be a deal or two to be had. And that’s how I found myself opposite-locking a $296k car across two lanes of Troy, Michigan’s “Big Beaver Road” at the top of second gear, idly contemplating my personal liability in any potential collision while my corporate babysitter clawed feebly at his door like a kitten kneading its mother’s stomach.

There’s a certain raw satisfaction to be had in seeing a man go utterly, completely mad in public, particularly when there’s a plateful of free bacon in front of you and an attentive server standing behind you, ready to swap your newly emptied bacon-plate for a full one at the slightest, Sotheby’s-private-bidder-esque, wave of a hand. This happy spectacle was available to all and sundry at the media breakfast that opened the Chicago Auto yesterday morning, courtesy of Hyundai’s American CEO, John Krafcik.

GM’s ex-Vice Chairman of Global Product Development left on a sour note. Bob Lutz claimed America is a nation that hates its own auto industry. It’s a remarkably nasty remark that’s almost as paranoid as it is insensitive. But not quite. The truth is much more specific and the other way around: GM executives hated their own customers. Why else would they have treated them with such contempt, selling them non-competitive products and inflicting such abysmal dealer service? (Heard the news?) Never mind. GM has built some tremendous enthusiasts’ cars: Corvette, G8, CTS and more. And now, the U.S. auto industry in general is about to experience a convulsive, cataclysmic change. Is that a good thing?

Writing in the Telegraph, Top Gear presenter James May says The Stig is a “harmless fairytale.” So much for the autoblogosphere’s paroxysms of go-faster gossip. The fact that most of Top Gear’s readers and viewers will continue to agitate themselves about the Stig’s “real identity” says a lot about their preference for theater over reality. As is often the case, the truth is far less glamorous than fiction. At least in this example, it’s no less interesting. Let’s start with this: if you take the Stig’s “Power Lap” times as reasonable statistics with which to compare the performance of two different cars, you’ve been seriously misled.

“Hi Mr. Baruth. First, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to assist you and please feel free to email or call me at the number provided if you have any other questions you need answered. I have a vehicle with a MSRP of $29,995. I can sell you that for $29,482.” Interesting. In the middle of the American automotive market’s worst implosion in living memory, what car could possibly be so valuable, so desired, so smoking hot that the maximum negotiating room possible would amount to an ungenerous five hundred and thirteen dollars off sticker? Give up? It’s a Pontiac G8. A 2008-model Pontiac G8.

It was a scene straight of Miami Vice: a Ferrari flashing through a cool summer night, the wind in my Crockett-esque hair, time seeming to pass in slow motion as I looked meaningfully over to my passenger. Instead of nodding back in uber-cool Ricardo Tubbs fashion, however, he pointed to the back and window and screamed, “THE CAMBELTS!” Oh, yeah.

 The familiar pattern of mid-engined, V8-powered sporting Ferrari seems set in stone nowadays– so much so that the front-engined California seems a touch heretical. ‘Twas not always so. The first production Fezza to put a V8 behind the driver was the knife-edged, ultra-modern, 308GT4 “Dino” four-seater. A Bertone design, it never found the favor accorded its Pininfarina-styled Dino 246 and 308GTB/GTS stablemates, and for the better part of the past fifteen years it’s vied with the similarly angular 400/400i 2+2 for the title of “cheapest used Ferrari.” A decent example can be found for twenty-five grand, and it’s possible to pay even less, assuming you’re willing to undertake some “deferred maintenance.”

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Maranello, we have a problem. Ferrari sales are down – way down – and waiting lists are evaporating. It’s not difficult to lay the blame for the sales meltdown on the “global credit crisis.” But the Scuderia must shoulder a good portion of the blame. Demand for the F430, particularly the Spider, has virtually disappeared following the arrival of the Ferrari California retractable hardtop. As it turns out, most F430 buyers didn’t care so much about the F430’s mid-engined balance, peerless on-track performance or Schumacher-tested suspension. They were buying the F430 because it was the cheapest Ferrari. And now that there is a cheaper one, they’re buying that instead. What we have here, as Strother Martin might say, is failure to understand the customer.